"Flint," Tanis said, his hazel eyes dancing, "take a day off."

"'Day off?" Flint sniffed, assuming a martyred air. "Never heard the term in my life."

At that, Tanis laughed aloud.

Flint glowered at him. "You young folk don't know the first thing about respect, do you?" he grumbled. Young folk… the words echoed in his mind, and then it struck him again as it had several times since he'd returned from Solace. Tanis was a far cry from the lad he had been when Flint had first come to the elven city. Even after just that first winter, Flint had been stunned by the changes, by how much more… well, how much more human the lad had looked. Especially compared to the other elves, particularly the younger ones, who seemed to have changed so little.

Flint himself looked hardly different than on the day he had first set foot in the Tower of the Sun, except perhaps for those few flecks of grey-well, maybe more than a few- that had found their way into his beard and the dark hair he still bound in a thong behind his neck. Aside from a deepening of some of the lines on his face and a slight expansion of his midline-a change Flint would flatly deny-he was still the same middle-aged dwarf, his steel-blue eyes just as bright and his grumbling just as common.

But Tanis was a different story. He had grown tall in these last years-not as tall as the Speaker, but enough that Flint was forced to crane his neck to speak to him. The differences between the half-elf and his full elf kindred were more apparent now. He was stronger than any of them, and his chest was deeper, though compared to a strong human man, he would have appeared slender. His face, too, showed evidence of the changes. His features lacked much of that characteristic elven smoothness, looking more as if they had been hewn from stone rather than polished from alabaster. His jaw was square, the bridge of his nose straight and strong, and his cheeks angular. And of course, his eyes were less almond-shaped than the eyes of other elves.

Back in Solace, Flint knew, Tanis would be considered a handsome young man, but here… well, most of the residents had seemed to have grown used to him by now, and much of the staring had ended-or at least had given place to occasional muttered comments, never uttered loudly enough for Tanis or Flint to actually confront the speaker. Still, it had been a hard time for Tanis. Humans matured so much faster than elves and dwarves that Tanis seemed, to his elven kindred, to have changed overnight.

"Shouldn't you be doing something now?" Flint said testily, making sure to keep himself between Tanis and the concealed sword.

"Like what?" Tanis asked. He seemed to sense that something was up with the dwarf.

"Like doing whatever it is that you do around here," Flint finished grumpily. "I'm too… too ill to entertain you today, lad. I need my rest." He peeked out of the corner of one blue eye to see if the half-elf was buying this.

Tanis shook his head. So Flint was in one of those moods.

"All right, Flint. I was going to suggest we go off on a bit of an adventure"-Flint's eyes went wide, and a sudden sneeze burst violently from him-"but I guess it can wait until another day." The half-elf scratched absently at his chin.

"Better take a razor to that thing again," Flint said, "or let it grow. One or the other unless you want to look like a highwayman."

Tanis looked startled, and he ran a hand across his cheek, feeling the stubble of a few days' growth of beard. A gift from his human father-or a curse, however you wanted to look at it, Tanis supposed. It had become noticeable a year or so ago, and Tanis still hadn't gotten used to it. He'd have to take the razor, the one Flint had fashioned for him, to it again.

"Why you'd want to shave a perfectly good beard in the first place, I wouldn't know," Flint complained.

Tanis shook his head absently. Let it grow? He couldn't do that. Flint saw this, and so let it go.

"All right, Flint, I'll leave you to your grumbling," Tanis said. "I really came by to deliver you a message. There's going to be some sort of announcement at court tomorrow afternoon, and the Speaker asked me to invite you."

"Announcement?" Flint said, drawing his bushy eyebrows together. "About what?"

Tanis shrugged again. "I have no idea. The Speaker's been closeted with Lord Xenoth and Tyresian for a day. I suppose you'll find out when I do." With a smile, the half-elf left the shop. The small chime sounded on the air again. Flint waited a long moment, just to be sure Tanis wasn't coming back, and then he uncovered the sword, rubbing his hands together. Ah, yes! It would be a wonderful sword."

Soon, the rhythmic music of his hammer could be heard again on the warm spring air.

Flint's shop was destined to receive a few more guests that day. The sound of Tanis's footsteps on the tile streets had no sooner receded than the chime sounded again. Flint flung the cloth across the sword once more and hastily stood before the weapon.

But it wasn't Tanis. It was an old woman, aged even for an elf-but Flint thought he saw a hint of human blood there, too. She was short and wiry, dressed in an eccentric fashion for an elf; elves tended to prefer flowing garments, but the old one wore a loose green top of some open weave and a gathered wool skirt that reached nearly to the ground, making her appear even shorter than she was. In fact, she was nearly eye to eye with the dwarf, a situation he had never experienced with an adult elf. The eyes that peered from the triangular face, however, were round and hazel-another hint at some human forebear. Flint would warrant that the human blood had come into her family line centuries before the Cataclysm. The wideness of her face across her eyes, combined with the narrowness of her chin, gave the old woman a catlike appearance. Unlike other elves, she wore her silver hair in a braid and a bun, exposing the ears that reflected her elven heritage. Her fingers were so long and slender that they appeared out of proportion to the rest of her body. Like Tanis, she wore moccasins; these were embroidered in deep purple beading, matching her skirt. Over all, she wore a lightweight hooded cloak of mottled lilac and pale green.

Attached to her skirt was a toddler, who looked up at the wrinkle-faced woman with an expression akin to adoration. The little boy-who hadn't been walking for many months, judging from his death grip on the woolen skirt-smiled milkily at Flint.

"Flink!" the youngster said, and dared loosen one hand's grip enough to point at the dwarf and smile at the old woman. "Flink!"

"Flink?" the dwarf repeated, stooping to look the child full in the face. Flint's brows shot up near his hairline. "I don't remember you from the Hall of the Sky-Oh, yes I do! Last autumn. You weren't walking yet. You were with your big brother. I gave you-What was it?"

The youngster shoved a hand into a pocket in his loose, teal-green coverall, and brought out a thumb-size chip of rose quartz, a fuzzy piece of quith-pa, and a carving of a robin. The child put all three treasures in Flint's hand and smiled again. The dwarf examined all three, nodded gravely, and handed back the rock and the bread; then he stood and looked at the elven woman, the wooden bird upright on his palm.

"You made that?" she asked in an alto that sounded like the tone of an elf several centuries younger. She reached out one slim finger and poked the bird.

The robin was fatter on the bottom than on top, and was rounded along its lower edge so that the toy, when bumped, rolled to the side, then bobbed back up again. Flint had fashioned the simple toy out of two pieces of wood, fastening a heavy chunk of iron near the bottom, between the two pieces, so that the bird could not be knocked over.